Fresh off his second Stanley Cup win, Tarasenko took a two-year contract in Detroit.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

The Detroit Red Wings signed Vladimir Tarasenko to a two-year contract, carrying a $4.75M cap hit. The deal carries a no-trade clause for the first year, and an eight-team trade list in the second year.

Below, we take a look at the deal, and whether the Red Wings are getting fair value.

Player Overview

Selected 16th overall by the St. Louis Blues in 2010, Vladimir Tarasenko emerged as a star with the organization through the 2010s. Over his tenure in St. Louis, Tarasenko scored at a pace of 33 goals and 70 points per 82, while capturing a Stanley Cup with the team in 2019.

The winger has bounced around a little bit in recent years though: Tarasenko was dealt from the Blues to the New York Rangers at the trade deadline in 2023, and then after signing with Ottawa last offseason, he waived his no-trade clause to go to Florida at the deadline, leading to his second Stanley Cup. Now, the Red Wings will mark Tarasenko’s fifth team over the last 18 months.

In Detroit, Tarasenko should be an immediate improvement to the team’s top-six, as the Red Wings look to work their way back to the postseason.

Comparables

Below we’ll take a look at comparable contracts to evaluate how the deal looks for the Red Wings, and whether it carries fair value. For more information on the stats/tables used below, including how the payment rate is calculated, visit the About the Site page.

With Tarasenko turning 33 years old in December, comparables were generally kept to forwards who were between 31 and 35 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their contract.

For readers using mobile view, a side-to-side scrolling option is available for the table below.

2 YEARS

A two-year deal comes in at a fair length, for a player of Tarasenko’s age and production. Comparables are shown below.

Of the nine comps, they’d have Tarasenko’s value in a range between a $3.85M and $6.9M cap hit on a two-year deal. Six of the nine comps also projected Tarasenko’s value to be above a $4.75M cap hit on a two-year contract.

That said, the top four comps on the table were deals that were either 1) signed in 2021 or prior, or 2) were signed by a center. As a result, the comps lower on the list, which were deals signed primarily by wingers from 2022 onwards, likely represent the better look at Tarasenko’s value.

Of the five bottom comps though, Adam Henrique was an outlier amongst the group. The forward pretty clearly took a pay-cut to remain in Edmonton and chase his first Stanley Cup, so the sub-$4M projection from his deal is on the low side.

As a result, the four best comps are likely Jordan Eberle, David Perron, Gustav Nyquist and Viktor Arvidsson, projecting Tarasenko between $4.35M and $5.65M on a two-year deal.

Arvidsson was coming off an injury-plagued campaign, so the projection from his deal probably isn’t the most accurate of the bunch. However, the deals for Eberle and Perron, both at $4.75M, represent a great look at assessing Tarasenko’s value. We’re able to compare the numbers that both Eberle and Perron posted, to look at whether Tarasenko’s numbers should warranted the same cap hit.

Compared to Eberle, Tarasenko’s production was a little ways higher both in his signing year and over his career, and projects Tarasenko’s value for be around $5.6M on a two-year deal. Meanwhile, Tarasenko had a very similar production ‘mid point’ between his signing year stats and career stats to Perron, but with a rising cap since Perron signed in 2022, you can argue Tarasenko’s value is a little higher, as shown by the $5.1M projection from the Perron deal.

So on a cost-per-points basis, those deals would’ve projected Tarasenko up above $5M on a two-year deal, between roughly $5.1M and $5.6M on a two-year deal.

Final Analysis

A two-year term for Tarasenko is fair – it minimizes risk for a winger in his 30s, while Tarasenko also gets a bit of security, coming off a one-year contract.

The cap hit is relatively fair, but likely comes in slightly lower than it could’ve been. Tarasenko’s expected cap hit for a two-year deal would’ve been a little higher, with projected value between $5M and $5.5M.